Seagate External HDD won't show up.

Try taking a look at this posting from Feb 15, 2017 10:20 AMRe: Seagate External HDD won't show up.in response to Pixie_0

I never would have figured this one out on my own, but thanks to this insight from Pixie_0, I was able to get my Seagate back in action.

Perhaps this is too late, but i wanted to put my solution here in case anyone else comes looking for this as i did.

My situation was the same, the drive was setup for Time Machine.

Suddenly it no longer mounted - although in a windows pc it also wouldn't mount but said in disk management that the drive was healthy.

I went into my Activity Monitor and saw that a process called fsck_hfs was running at 100%.

Ended this process in activity monitor and it threw out an error about time machine, but then the disk mounted.

Might help - might not - but it worked for me

Thank you so much for posting this. I had the same problem...left my Seagate 2TB USB backup drive plugged into my 2009 iMac,walked away, and when I returned, the disk was still there on the desktop, but reading as empty. Tried all the usual things (changing cables, restarting, different MAC, etc.) but nothing worked. System report would show the drive as being there, but when attempting to use First Aid to mount it...nothing...just the perpetual spinning wheel. Tried your suggestion of checking the Activity Monitor, and there it was... fsck_ms. Quit it and, immediately, my drive was back up on the desktop, 100%. Thanks again. Never would have gotten that one on my own in a million years!

I found the next solution:

1. Connect the HD to a Windows PC and run the Start_here_Win.exe.
2. Install Paragon NTFS for Mac on your iMac
3. Plug in the HD and voila it'll appear in Finder

Any other other will not work

unplug power from external drive - unplug usb cable from external drive - unplug cable from computer

go to bathroom look in mirror and say I can do this - return to computer

plug power supply into external drive - plug cable into external drive - plug cable in computer

enjoy 🙂

Had this same problem and tried many of the obvious solutions everyone suggested: rebooting, looking at finder options, etc.

My solution was to plug the same drive into a laptop running Windows. As soon as it was plugged in I received an error message stating that there was an error with the drive. Windows suggested a "Scan and Fix" - I allowed Windows to do it's thing. When the scan and repair were complete I took it back to my Mac, plugged it in, and everything works fine now.

Okay, I seem to have similar problem, yet nothing of the described here methods seem to help:

1) I am running Macbook Pro Retina (late 2015)

2) my Seagate drive is 1TB Backup Plus portable drive that I had previously used on both Windows and much older Macbook, hence it is formatted in FAT32

I am fairly certain that I have used this drive on my macbook, yet right now when I plug it in, it doesn't appear in neither Desktop / Finder / Disk Utility / System Report (USB). The cable is connected, the light is on, I can feel the drive working. Also, I connected it to my windows laptop and it is working without problem there. I don't have the Paragon NTFS drives installed at all and I am not sure if that is supposed to be an issue since, as I mentioned, the drive is FAT32.

Any suggestions are appreciated!

This process does not come up in my Activity Monitor. However, I noticed that immediately after restart the drive is showing up without ANY problems and works perfect. But if I eject it (through the command/button) and try to reconnect it at a later moment, it is no longer recognized. Any clue?

I too had this problem. My fix was to update my NTFS Paragon Driver for Mac on the Seagate website.

Follow the instructions then restart and it showed back up. I was having all the same problems where the HDD would not show up anywhere. Now it works fine.

SOLVED for me! I couldn't see Seagate external hard drive in my finder. I had to go to Finder > Preferences and ensure CDs, DVDs and iPods was checked (and make sure Hard disks was a checkmark, though this wasn't the solution). For whatever reason, my external drive fell into this category!

By far the best 'solution' that I found from this list of posts was the one that said to make sure your computer was powered on and plugged in. Obviously on older macs (and perhaps new ones) the drive takes quite a bit of USB power. Worked like a charm (not immediately, but after about 1 minute).

Whew. :-)

I had this problem and thought my drive was damaged or "dead." And then I searched for "Seagate" on my Mac and found the "Seagate Dashboard" under applications. I didn't realize that was even installed when I first used my hard drive. It recommended updating the software. I ignored the "you may lose everything" message, because it meant you will lose your previous dashboard info. Anyway, after I updated and restarted my hard drive worked and I could see it on my desktop! What a relief!

"For me, the solution was to not connect the USB connector all the way into the USB port. Just put it all the way in, and then pull it out about a millimeter or so, until you see it appear on the finder."

This worked for me!

So I have a seagste back up plus slim 1tb the light comes on solid, I feel the drive spinning no beeps. My mac book pro doesn't ever read the drive not even in disk utility I know if there is a beep or flashing light it means the drive is corrupted but I have no idea why it isn't working just stoped one day please help

Hi I had this same problem and search the web for answers for a long time. It started after my upgrade to sierra. My seagate was visible in system report though.

What I suddenly noticed is the following solution: wait longer. After about 20 minutes it gets recognized! And the second time faster.

Hope it helps.